Armenia at the center of the “big game”

A1plus

| 14:05:13 | 01-07-2005 | Politics |

ARMENIA AT THE CENTER OF THE `BIG GAME’

Why isn’t the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settled? This is conditioned not by
the points of view of the immediate participants of the conflict but by the
profits of the superpowers. `The conflicts are means to preserve the
influence of Russia’, this is the opinion of the Armenian Center for
National and International Studies expert Stepan Safaryan. `If the conflicts
are settled, the `big game’ will be over and one of the playing powers will
be ousted from the region’. {BR}

Today during the discussion titled `The Place and Role of Armenia in the
Region’ the participants cleared out that the players of the `big game’ are
Russia and USA as superpowers, and Europe has the mission of spreading the
Euro Asian oil programs and the Western values. According to the Center
expert, the tandem USA-EU acts more efficiently against Russia, than the
latter manages to use their disagreements against them.

By the way, in June the workers of the Armenian Center for National and
International Studies carries out a social survey in which 40 experts and
1500 citizens took part. One of the interesting facts about the survey is
that the society is divided into 3 equal parts answering the question
«Should Armenia become member of the NATO? ». More than half of the experts
who are for Armenia becoming member of the NATO explain it this way,
«Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan must be in the same security system».

The majority of the participants of the survey think that at present in
Armenia the influence of Russia is great, and in Georgia and Azerbaijan –
that of USA is great. It is also mentioned that Armenia is a leader in the
Defense, Education and Science and Culture fields. Georgia is leader in the
Inner and Foreign policy field, and Azerbaijan, according to the
participants of the survey, is not leader in anything.